In 1787 a small, mainly Quaker group led by Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) formed The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Their cause seemed hopeless as slavery was crucial to Britain's economy but popular feeling was on their side. The French Revolution and the backlash against British Radicalism temporarily stalled the anti-slavery campaign. The Society's Parliamentary spokesman William Wilberforce finally oversaw the triumphant passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. The Great Reform Act of 1832 swept away many of the old pro-slavery MPs and the final emancipation of slaves in British colonies was effected in 1833. This monumental painting records the 1840 convention of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society which was established to promote worldwide abolition. A frail and elderly Clarkson addresses a meeting of over 500 delegates. Identifiable portraits include the liberated slave Henry Beckford (b. c. 1809), in the foreground, the Irish Radical Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) and the novelist and campaigner Amelia Opie (1769-1853). Haydon later wrote: 'a liberated slave, now a delegate, is looking up to Clarkson with deep interest … this is the point of interest in the picture, and illustrative of the object in painting it, the African sitting by the intellectual European, in equality and intelligence'.

Current affairs

Sir Robert Peel's second term as Prime Minister. Peel replaces the Whig Prime Minister Lord Melbourne after a Conservative general election victory. The English comic periodical Punch is first published, under the auspices of engraver Ebenezer Landells and writer Henry Mayhew, and quickly establishes itself as a radical commentary on the arts, politics and current affairs, notable for its heavily satirised cartoons.

Art and science

Thomas Carlyle publishes his set of lectures On Heroes and Hero Worship, in which he attempts to connect past heroic figures to significant figures form the present. William Henry Fox Talbot invents the calotype process, in which photographs were developed from negatives. This allowed for multiple copies of images to be made, and was the basis of modern, pre-digital, photographic processing.

International

Signing of the Straits Convention, an international agreement between Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Turkey, denying access to non-Ottoman warships through the seas connecting the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, a major concession by Russia. Whilst signalling a spirit of co-operation, the convention emphasises the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

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